Mai-nichi

I haven't felt like writing lately. I am in week four of the XHTML class, and loving it completely, but it's making me sick of sitting at the computer. It's so exciting that you can change the way words look by adding little tags! I guess this is true about learning any new language, but when I'm thinking about something sarcastically, the italics tag comes to mind, or when I'm writing out notes on a pad, I'll think of the tag to add color to the page. Another thing keeping me away from posting is that the weather here has been wonderful lately, and I've been out enjoying it. Spring is on the way, and the bamboo trees are starting to get slightly green and leafy, and the nights are cold and clear, with zillions of stars and tiny quarter-moons. It's been beautiful.

I posted a list of military-related things that happen in my life each day. I intended to follow that with a list of Japanese-y things to explain a little more about what it's like to live here, but I don't think I'll end up doing that, at least not right now. It's been on my mind, I've been trying to watch from outside of myself and see each little difference, but it gets lost when I think of telling anyone else about it all. Even after all this time it still feels impossible to describe. The military stuff is easy to talk about because it's very novel to me, and it's not really a part of my life. I am very rarely on base, I think I've gone to base twice in my life for something other than work. (Ok, minus sneaking trash on base, because that happens a lot.) It's just not a real factor in my experience here. But all the Japanese stuff mixes together to make up my whole experience, and it almost seems too personal to try to describe.

On Friday while driving to work I stopped at train tracks and a tiny man ran up to my window and gave me some traffic safety literature, bowed, and then ran away. It doesn't really mean anything, but every five minutes something happens here that has never happened to me in the States, and that I can't really describe in a way that a reader could understand how it feels. If I could do that, I think it would be very interesting! (Actually, I think Anna Dilemna does that pretty well.) And that was the goal of the blog, to bridge some distance. But I can't describe all the strangeness yet, and it feels like giving something away too soon to try. So all you get is bits and pieces, and you'll have to move here yourself to get the rest.